Archive for August, 2008

I took my car in for it’s 60,000 mile check.
plus I needed an oil change really badly and had an emissions test coming up.
Anyways, I took it to the dealer because as awesome as Desert Sun is, it doesn’t usually keep up with recalls for every single car.

Apparently the headlights and some computer program that caused stalling were recalled and those were fixed for free, and then I paid the usual ludicrous amount for the usual worthless stuff.

The next week I drive up to foothills mall to do some shopping and also to change my drivers license to an Arizona one. First, I find out that Illinois is one of the places where your drivers license cannot be used as a primary form of identification to change to an Arizona license.

Then, on my drive back, suddenly the AC stops working. the fan starts blowing hot air.
I call the dealer back and my service technician says they can fit me in for emergency the next day. Before I take the car in I pop the hood just to take a look, and lo I have no coolant. Waaaay below the “low” mark.

I take the car in and the technician is VERY clear about how if they are not at fault I’ll have to pay the $100+ diagnostic fee. I was fairly clear about how I thought that it would be a fascinating coincidence that a catastrophic break happened the week after major servicing that would not be the fault of the maintenance. And I made sure to point out that I had no coolant. Upon which the technician looked at it and told me “there’s still some in there”… I suppose it is possible my impression that it ought to be filled to the “low” line at least was wrong.

Hours pass and I get a call back from the dealer, “we fixed your car”. Apparently for some reason fixing the computer required them to unbolt some fans, which were then not bolted back in as well as they had been in the past. i.e. some bolts blew off of a part under the hood of the car because the technician was being stupid. And as for the coolant. something about flushing the coolant blah blah blah… I think the take away message was. “we flushed it and then forgot to refill it”.

When I went to get the car, I was told “you don’t have to pay the diagnostic fee”… I refrained from saying what I really though which was, “can I sue you for malpractice?”